Do You Think They Had Hearts?
by ohdearyme
Summary: Sometimes, when Sora is just in the corner of his peripheral vision, Riku is certain that he is Roxas.
1. Yes, Of Course

"Sora."

"What?"

Do you wonder about them? How many we've killed (murdered?), left to disintegrate into dazzling spots of light? How many of them had lives? How many of them could think? How many of them were like Roxas, like Axel, like Namine?

He almost words it like that, but he thinks it will come out too harshly and make it obvious that he is worried. He stops himself and takes a shuddering breath inward that tells Sora more of his worries than he knows.

Sometimes, when Sora is just in the corner of his peripheral vision, Riku is certain that he is Roxas. The hair twists, flattens, and bleaches, the clothing whitens, the stature shortens, but when he finally catches up to Riku in the sun-drenched tropical heat, he is full of smiles and blue eyes lacking Roxas' essential sadness. When the spiky-haired boy is in that half moment between sleeping and waking (Riku's mouth twists as he is suddenly reminded of Neverland) and Riku is there to see it, his expressions are not his own. He will clutch at his pillow, his eyes more almond-shaped than usual, his fingers strangely slender, and his mouth in a straight-lined grimace that Sora barely ever used. But then he is up, questioning why Riku looks so bewildered and horrified, and Riku doesn't know what to tell him: in general the transformation is so shocking that he simply is left speechless.

Kairi is this way too. With her, it is even worse, however; the witch seems reluctant to give her more than a few seconds of philosophical conversation with Riku before she is there, being much less silly than Kairi ever would. Riku asked her this question first, and it was Namine who answered, blue eyes with black rims oddly creepy in the island's light, pale skin defiantly out of place next to Riku's bronzed, summer-induced tan. she only whispers a light, "Yes, of course," before giving Kairi back control. Blonde hair melting rapidly back to auburn, Kairi looks faint and it is not until the freckles on her nose return that she appears ready to speak. "What did you say?" she asks. Riku tells her to forget it.

Will it be the same with Sora? Riku does not want to see the boy who was not Sora, does not want to be reminded again of that lonely time in the drizzle when they fought and he lost. But he asks it anyways, just because if Sora answers, it will be worth it.

"Do you think they had hearts?"

o-o-o-o

A/N: You have been sucessfully drabble'd! Or short-fic'd, or whatever. Next chapter coming out soon, I assure you, because I have KH on the brain.


	2. Of Course Not

"Of course not!"

When Riku looks at him questioningly, Sora begins again. "Well, how could they? They weren't even whole. They didn't even have feelings."

"How do you know?"

"Weeeell," he draws out the syllables carefully, as if bargaining for time in this unusually philosophical moment, "I guess I don't know, _exactly_. But I trust Yensid, and I don't think he'd lie to me." Sora's smile is reassuring, even if it is the smile of someone who trusts too easily: the show of a neat row pearly teeth is a habit Sora picked up recently, but it's still _Sora's_, so Riku exhales slowly in relief. Sora notices this, and, looking down from the sky that he had been so fervently admiring a second earlier in the lull of conversation, decides to tweak Riku's nose. This is so undignified that Riku gives an even more undignified squawk, which just makes Sora laugh more.

In the midst of chuckles that only Kairi would dare label giggles, it is Sora who exhales slowly this time, but not in relief - his expression loosens, and he drops just half of the smile, face contorted into a strange grimace as Riku sees the Nobody struggling for control of his body.

"You're not afraid of me, are you?" He asks casually under a curtain of Sora's brown hair, before it is replaced with his own blond and his cautious expression is exposed by the lack of length. The flicker of fear in Riku's eyes is answer enough, and then it is gone and Sora is back once more, and Kairi would definitely say that he is having a giggle fit. "Big, strong Riku, afraid of little old me?"

Riku wants to say, _yes. _Yes, I am afraid of what you have become. I am afraid of that smirk you got from Peter Pan, and how tan you got in Atlantica, and that ugly costume you got in Halloween Town that you swear you'll wear this year, and how you miss a dog and a duck and spend all your time thinking about what was in that goddamn bottle. I want things back to the way they used to be, before all this.

Instead he says, "I can still whoop your ass at sparring, you know," Because that is what he would have said before all this, and he hopes that maybe saying it will make it true. Sora doesn't let it be true, or rather, Roxas doesn't - the nobody is there, and he remembers the time that he nearly beat Riku to death with a cold, bloody keyblade.

"Could you, now?" He is not calm, nor contained by normal standards, but he is still more calm and contained than Sora would ever be about this. Apparently not willing to take any more of Riku, he gets up, stalking off the beach and away. Riku doesn't follow him, but instead stares out at the star-filled sky like Sora had a few moments before and gathers his thoughts.

o-o-o-o

A/N: I'm so frightened of myself. I want to mess around with this story a bit, which is why this chapter is open-ended and kind of a cliffhanger. Preps to anybody who has read Peter Pan and caught the pearly-toothed smile/smirk reference. Peter was always doing that in the book, so that's what Riku meant. By the way, I love reviews...no, seriously, love.

The rating of this might go up as the chapters progress. I've already said "ASS". Oh no. In addition, the title might change, because I can't stand the lowercase but can't stand that sentence in screaming uppercase, either.


	3. What are you afraid of?

Part Three: What are you afraid of?

"Namine." He never refers to her by her actual name, because he feels like he doesn't know her by her actual name. Not that he knows either of them especially well, like he thought he knew his old friends. But her originial is, well, Sora's. He still isn't Sora.

"Hmmm?" She is sitting on a bench, quietly doodling a dark representation of the island's trees (for now the light is gone) with markers and the light of a cell phone, but nothing about her appearance has changed from Kairi's. Her drawings are getting progressively worse, less sharply focused and stylistic, and she is losing the ability to shade. Roxas thinks pessimistically that Kairi is poisoning the blonde's talent. Finally feeling his mute gaze on her, she looked up from the drawing. "What's up?"

_I don't want to talk to you when you look like Kairi. I think Sora's best friend hates me. I miss Axel, Olette, Hayner and Pence and I'll never see any of them again._ "Riku said he was afraid of me." Roxas mutters mulishly, looking down and shuffling his bare feet in the deep sand below them. They're still paler than the sand itself.

"Weird." She was definitely still Kairi, overconfident, making a molehill out of a mountain. Namine was the one who truly understood things. But if she was in Kairi, then did that mean that Kairi understood things all along and just had never shown it? "Why would he say a thing like that?" she asked contemplatively.

"Well, he didn't say he wasn't," Roxas replies, as if that explains everything. There is a strange aspect to his voice and it is a full minute later until he realizes the one who said this was Sora.

"Maybe you're reading too far between the lines," Kairi said calmly, chin in her hands as she studied him.

"He didn't even reply. He changed the subject." Roxas murmured.

"You beat him once, didn't you?"

"Yeah." _It's kind of ironic that only part of me can win against Riku, after all these years._

_Shut up,_ Roxas thought back. _Just shut up. _

_Are you mad because -_

"Well, what are you afraid of, Roxas?" Kairi asks pleasantly, looking over her drawing again. "Isn't there anything that frightens you?"

_I used to be afraid of the dark, are you?_

_No, never, _Roxas replies.

She laughs as he stands there, talking to himself. At least he doesn't have whole conversations out loud, like she sometimes does. "Hurting yourself thinking, huh? Well, I can't turn into Namine if that's what you're waiting for."

Roxas looks up, both he and Sora shocked into silence.

"I think we're the same now, she and me. It's kind of depressing, losing yourself and getting something back at the same time. Look how bad this is, for example. There isn't enough of her to stop me from ruining it," she laughed again, almost awkwardly. "But now I can remember everything, which is good. It's all coming back, just like I was her all that time."

"Do you think it'll happen to me?" Roxas asks cautiously.

She smiled in a way that made him think she was Namine, and replied, "If you let it."

As he gives his body back to Sora, Kairi's question still lingers in his mind.

"Well, what are you afraid of, Roxas?"

A/N: late update, sorry; I hope you're all still enjoying it.You know what's another really good game? Tales of the Abyss. Yeah, I'll get shot for pimping that. KH is still awesome, but I might be writing something Abyss-y in the future.


End file.
